Nitromians

Nitromians (singular Nitromian; pronounced Nī•trō•mē•an) is the official term used to address fans and followers of Nitrome. The greeting “Hi Nitromians!” or “Hey Nitromians!” is often the introduction to many blog posts.

Contents

Origins of the name

About a month after the release of the "new blog look", Nitrome put up a request in their blog on March 2, 2011, asking fans for suggestions on what they would like to be addressed as.[1] Before that, preceding blog posts either had no greeting or addressed Nitromians as "fans".[2] Suggestions made through Facebook and Twitter were considered. Fans submitted names such as "nits", "coopers", "Nitrominions" and "pixel people".[3] On April 1, 2011, the decision was made to use "Nitromians" as the official term for Nitrome fans, and many blog posts since then have begun with such a greeting.

Contributions

Steamlands Player Pack

Nitrome’s first real-time strategy game Steamlands was also the first to include a level editor. Since its release, a certain sequence of keys would allow players to access the level editor, but it was never publicized until August 5, 2011. Nitromians were now able to send in their own level designs to Nitrome, and each would be played individually.[4] Initially, fan levels that “made the cut” would be added to Steamlands’ next update[5], however, all submissions were eventually put together into a compilation called Steamlands Player Pack. All levels were based off of designs sent in by Nitromians, and others were also included in a scrolling gallery on the menu screen.

Nitrome Must Die

The hint of Nitrome’s upcoming game led to minor conflicts on their Facebook page[6], where two users under the aliases Austin Carter and Justin Bennet began posting hate comments on a handful of Nitrome’s Facebook posts. A site was soon advertised under the URL nitromemustdie.com in an attempt to encourage Nitromians to “shut down Nitrome for good”. During this time period, Nitrome recognized a petition and fanart opposing the “Nitrome Must Die” movement[7]. Eventually, the “Nitrome Must Die” movement was revealed to be Nitrome themselves as a preview for their one hundredth game[8].

Recognitions

Nitrome has recognized Nitromians even before the release of their new blog. Individuals are sometimes acknowledged in blog posts, under a section called “Fans”.

Fanart

In the blog section “Fans”, Nitrome features individual Nitromian’s fanart. Although fanart was featured before the layout of the Nitrome blog changed, it was seldom done, as was the case with blog posts themselves. With the new blog look in place, Nitrome began to recognize and feature more fanart on a weekly basis[9]. The post would have a link to the fanart to be viewed as well as providing some feedback on the fanart itself. Each post concludes by encouraging Nitromians to send in their fanart.

Links

The links page, updated upon the release of Nitrome.com 2.0, included a section for fan sites created by Nitromians. At the moment, there are two fan sites linked on the page: Nitrome Universe and Nitrome Wiki.